


Sweetheart, Surrender

by thispapermoon



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Hicsqueak, Kissing, Misunderstandings, Tea and Sympathy, Two witches in love, and hecate gets the wrong idea, julie and pippa love pastries, sweets for the sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thispapermoon/pseuds/thispapermoon
Summary: Pippa is cotton candy clouds, and golden sun, and opal, star-strewn wonder.And Hecate.Hecate knows what she is.Astringent coffee, and sharp vinegar, and bitter licorice.****Finding Pippa Pentangle and Julie Hubble cavorting over a pile of prettily iced pastries doesn't help Hecate Hardbroom with her sour mood. But Pippa somehow always finds a way to make things awfully sweet.





	Sweetheart, Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> do not try to tell me that julie hubble and pippa pentangle don't have a club for confection enthusiasts. hecate can't stand itttt.

Head pounding, shoulders tight, Hecate Hardbroom closes her eyes and then blinks them back open. Stares down at the page before her and wills the letters to suddenly make sense. Enid Nightshade truly does have appalling penmanship, made all the worse by her preposterous suggestion that candied bee brain would be a reasonable ingredient to be found in a Shivering Spell anecdote.

She closes her eyes again and shakes a head that has felt muddled all day.

If she didn’t know better, she could almost believe that she’s just heard Pippa Pentangle’s voice echoing down the hall like a long forgotten melody.

One that Hecate can’t seem to rid from her head.

Can’t seem to rid Pippa from her head either.

The sound comes again and she squeezes her eyes more tightly shut.

Sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose, and settles for slumping over her desk. Such posture is pure defeat, she realizes, but can’t seem to summon the wherewithal to right herself.

For everything has gone topsy-turvy.

From Pippa appearing back in her life again last year, to Pippa going up against the Great Wizard to save Cackle’s from losing its very namesake, to Pippa, lips warm, hands soft against her as she’d kissed Hecate’s cheek goodbye six months before.

And Hecate had let her go.

Had gazed upwards at the sky and purses her lips in subtle longing, but had stayed firmly on the ground. Pippa had risen above her, higher and higher, before disappearing into the clouds.

And Hecate had  simply let her go.

She sighs again and pushes herself back into her seat before falling back limply against the hard wooden back of her chair.

Pippa belongs in the sky, she’d told herself. Just as she belongs on the ground.

Pippa is cotton candy clouds, and golden sun, and opal, star-strewn wonder.

And Hecate.

Hecate knows what she is.

Astringent coffee, and sharp vinegar, and bitter licorice.

It had begun to rain again just after. After Pippa had been lost into the clouds. She remembers the way the drops had hit her skin. Had nearly burned her then. The unexpected sensation, her overwrought nerves. Her still wildly beating heart.

She’d transferred to her rooms. To safety. She’d nearly gone after Pippa.

She’d held back.

And then -  the Founding Stone. The Great Freeze. Mildred Hubble kneeling before an amber stone, magic shrinking within her, terror blooming in its place.

She’d felt so empty after. Ill and stretched. Emptied like the inside of a scoured cauldron. Sore and enfeebled.

Pippa had come.

Of course she’d come.

Had nearly tumbled off her broom outside Hecate’s window, a look on her face that Hecate knew to mean _how could you let something like this happen here_.

And Hecate couldn’t face it.

Couldn’t hear her say _this is why I wanted to help run the place. This is what happens when you’re wrong._

So Hecate hadn’t opened the window. Had stood and watched as Pippa, hair caught in the breeze, broom bobbing in midair, had called to her through the glass. Voice wavering through the thick leaded panes, too distorted for Hecate to distinguish her words.

But she hadn’t needed to.

Hadn’t needed to hear Pippa say she'd let her down.

In her memory, Pippa’s fingers, splayed against the glass, stands out in a detail far sharper than the rest. The sound of her voice, muffled and emotional. In an older memory, Pippa’s fists against her door. Sharper than the sound of her voice, muffled and emotional.

Hecate shivers. Curls her hands around the carved armrests of her chair and takes a slow inhale.

Fills her lungs.

Freezes.

_That voice again._

It winds its way to her. A memory. A siren’s call. A longing.

She pushes herself up and stands still. Listening. Focusing.

Twists her fingers and feels her body flood with nothing.

For a moment.

Precious nothing.

When she lands, the cool air of the West Tower greets her. The spiral stair curves down below her and she blinks, clutches the wall, breathes through the dizzying thrill that accompanies the visual illusion that the stone is not as solidly beneath her as it seems.

Pippa’s laugh is unmistakable. Curling like the staircase out from the bell tower merely a few twists up.

Stomach clenching, hands shaking, Hecate rights herself. Inhales in and exhales out. Prepares to make herself known and question _just_ _what in Merlin’s name Pippa thinks she is doing in Cackle’s bell tower uninvited._

But before she can move, Pippa laughs again and her voice floats down. Warm like the sun. Warm like spun sugar.

“Mmm, so good. So, _so_ good.”

There’s a murmur in response, a woman’s voice, and Hecate feels her skin turn cold.

“Oh,” Pippa sighs, “Do you know how _good_  that is?”

Hecate blushes. From her stomach to her hairline, she feels hot fire lick her skin. Pippa’s voice is low and coy, and it makes something inside Hecate tightens at the same time something else inside of her breaks.

She twists her hand again and lands solidly in the tower, outrage pulsing off of her in a heated wave. How dare Pippa come to Cackle’s to have a tryst. How dare she flaunt herself in a location where any young witch could happen upon her. Upon  _them._

_And which teacher is brazen enough to be her mate._

Rage masks grief as she solidifies and comes to stare in gaping horror at the scene that meets her eyes.

Pippa Pentangle. Sitting on the large, airy window sill amongst a pile of pastries, and donuts, and sweet treats, feeding a sprinkle covered tea cake to one Miss Julie Hubble.

Hecate freezes.

Pippa freezes.

Julie chokes.

 _“What_ is the _meaning_ of this,” Hecate hisses mouth recovering long before her brain can do so.

Pippa blinks at her, hand still raised as Julie pulls back, coughing a little on an inhale of crumbs.

“Hecate.”

“How dare you engaged in such behavior,” Hecate seethes, throat burning, heart burning, eyes burning into Pippa’s. “I do not know what sort of _behavior_ you consider appropriate at your own school, _Miss Pentangle_ , but I assure you, this reckless, public obscenity will _not_ be tolerated at Cackle’s.”

Again, Pippa blinks.

“We were just having sweets,” she says slowly, a frown drawing up between her eyebrows.

Julie, having recovered herself, wipes a streak of sugar from one cheek and reaches out to press Pippa’s hand down from where it still lingers in midair.

“I didn’t realize that we were engaging in a reckless obscenity.” Julie looks like she’s about to laugh.

But Pippa’s features stay troubled as she continues to stare steadily at Hecate. “And just _what_ is so obscene?”

“You,” Hecate breathes, fire growing within her, “having a - a - _dalliance_ \- out in the open - where girls could see.”

Julie gasps, eyes widening. She looks like she might laugh again, but thinks better of it as Pippa’s face grows more and more closed off.

“A dalliance? Hecate - what? We were merely having pastries and chatting. What have -” Pippa’s eyes suddenly flash. “And what’s so wrong with a dalliance, anyway? What’s so wrong with two witches in love?”

She rises, crumbs sprinkling down around her feet and Hecate stumbles back.  
  
“You’re in love?”

It comes out as a whisper. A devastated, pain-choked utterance and Pippa’s features shift again from anger back to confusion.

“Of course I am,” she whispers. Her eyes don’t leave Hecate’s, but Hecate has to look away. She drops her gaze to her shoes as tears of disappointment and heartbreak suddenly threaten to break free.

“I should,” she begins, voice hardly audible, “leave you two to it.” She’s never felt so utterly defeated. Never felt so small and fragile. She raises her hand to transfer but no magic comes.

She’s left to sway haplessly on the spot, soaked through in further humiliation.

“What?” Pippa whispers. And suddenly a warm, sticky hand is covering her own where it still hangs in the air, waiting to casts a spell that will take her far, far away from here. “What? You think - you think Julie and I - “ she gasps and Hecate’s eyes can’t help darting up to glimpse the expression on her face, only to find it unreadable and guarded.

Behind them, Julie clears her throat. “Always glad for the tea and sympathy, Miss Pent, and of course, the supply of sweets.” She gathers up an armful of pastries, haphazardly stuffing her pockets until she bulges like a ill-wrapped parcel. “But now seems like the time to take my leave.”

She tries to skirt around them to the stairs but Hecate can’t seem to move.

“Via the stairs,” she sighs, looking between them. “Seeing as I can’t transfer?”

Hecate finds herself moving, realizes that it’s Pippa’s hand on her arm guiding her forward so Julie can pass.

She doesn’t much care for the smirk Julie sends Pippa as she goes, but Pippa shakes her head tightly and Julie merely winks and disappears down the steps, her footsteps fading until all Hecate can hear is the faint rustle of bats in the tower above and her own treacherous heartbeat.

Pippa drops her hand.

“Do you really think love between two witches is obscene.” There’s a note in her voice, something Hecate can’t place. The sensation as if someone has a spell bent on twisting her insides intensifies.

She grits her teeth. “Whatever goes on between you and Julie Hubble is none of my concern, just so long as it says out of my school and away for the eyes of impressionable girls.”

Pippa rounds on her, eyes bright. “So you _do_ think it’s wrong. And where ever did you get the idea that Julie and I were - where -” she shakes her head and crosses her arms, glaring at Hecate and Hecate can’t seem to catch up with the speed at which her emotions keep recalibrating.

She can’t think of anything to say when Pippa moves in, arms still crossed, eyes on fire. “Julie Hubble is not my lover.”

It’s so direct, so perfectly Pippa, yet Hecate can’t help the squeak of surprise and panic at hearing Pippa’s mouth form such a word.

_Lover._

She blushes again from polished boot to well-pinned bun. Tries not to imagine Pippa being anyone’s lover. Tries not to imagine being Pippa’s lover.

Her breath is coming faster and Pippa is still close, studying her. Not backing down.

“Do you really think it’s so wrong,” Pippa says again. This time Hecate places the note. Grief. Vulnerability. Pain.

And suddenly Hecate finds herself reviewing everything she knows about the woman before her.

Or throught she knew.

Fingertips against glass.

Fists against wood.

Lips against skin.

Reeling, hardly daring, her eyes come up slowly. They find Pippa’s to be wet and searching. She opens her mouth and closes it again. Swallows with great difficulty.

“No,” she whispers, and feels as if they’re back in the lab all over again, Mildred Hubble lurking just beyond the door as she and Pippa make fragile and ill-fated amends. “No.” Again she swallows. Pauses. Grits out, “Only when it’s you and a Hubble.”

Pippa laughs. Bright and surprised. The sound bubbles over emotion in her throat as she wipes at her eyes, blinking up at the bats before her gaze drops back to Hecate. “And if it were me and Miss Drill?”

Hecate flinches. But Pippa’s hand is suddenly on her arm. Warm and secure.

“Or Miss Bat?”

Pippa’s hand is sliding up, sure against the cloth of her sleeve, and she tries not to shiver as she vehemently shakes her head.

“Or,” Pippa’s voice wavers, uncertain, “you and Ada?”

Hecate gapes at her. Finds her voice. “Really, Pippa.”

She watches as Pippa lets out a breath and inhales sharply as Pippa’s hand finds its way to the base of her neck, hooking there and tugging her in.

“What would you say,” she breathes, lips suddenly inches from Hecate’s own, “about you and me?”

And Hecate can’t help the near whimper of need that tears from her, aching, desperate, as Pippa’s lips find her own.

Pippa is cotton candy, and golden sun, and opal, star-strewn wonder.

She tastes like icing, and jam, and home and Hecate feels herself unfurl beneath her touch. She presses closer as her fingers curl in Pippa’s hair.

Something within her turns wild. The sour hitting the sweet, the bitter blending with the honeyed movements of Pippa’s tongue against her own, the movements of her body against her own.

It’s instinct that drives her forward, until she has Pippa against the arch of the bell tower window, instinct that has her kissing her quite helplessly as something grows within her, sharp, tangy, and so desperately, desperately needy that she has to break away, bury her face in Pippa’s neck. She sucks in a breath, filling with shame as her hips move without her governance, seeking something that seems just beyond her grasp.

Pippa’s hands settle on her back. Firm and soothing, and Hecate sucks in more air, shuddering as she tries to regain her sensibilities.

“Hey, hey,” Pippa breathes, and her hand finds its way back to Hecate’s neck, curling there to guide her head up until they rest forehead to forehead. Pippa’s eyes widen, and Hecate knows the tears that cling to her lashes must be the cause. “Hey,” Pippa whispers against, softer this time, tucking a strand of hair between Hecate’s ear.

 _I’m sorry_ , Hecate wants to say. Flinches and bites at her bottom lip. Closes her eyes and wishes the pulsing throb between her legs, the saccharine tug of needing _more_ low in her belly, would vanish like a transfer.

Her magic still alludes her. And when she opens her eyes Pippa is regarding her with warm, liquid eyes.

“I’ve always hoped,” Pippa murmurs, and Hecate can hear a low and open fondness in her voice, “that we would end up here.”

Blinking, Hecate tries to focus. “In a bell tower acting like teenagers as you ride out a sugar high?”

“Mmmm,” Pippa breathes and leans in and nips at Hecate’s lower lip and Hecate _trembles_.

“There are other highs, better highs.” She nudges her nose against Hecate’s and draws back, fingers sliding up to brush down Hecate’s cheek. “But not here. As you note, the girls needn’t bear witness.” Her eyes turn dark and suddenly her hands are sliding down Hecate’s body in a way that makes every nerve jump and spark. “Though I think it is important that impressionable girls know that -”

“That this right,” Hecate breathes, hands tightening on Pippa’s hips. “This feels right.”

Pippa’s smile is warmer than the sun that streams through the open tower window and Hecate blushes. She leans into the kiss that Pippa gently presses against her mouth. Sighs a bit and feels her shoulders loosen.

When Pippa draws back, her eyes gleam and her expression has turned wicked.

“Now," she murmurs, pulling Hecate's arms around her more securely, "if you please, take me to your chambers where I can show you just how obscene I can really be.”

Choking, Hecate feels her magic surge through her blood once again, hot and heady as her desire.

Sharp, and familiar, and perfectly, perfectly sweet.


End file.
